1. Technical Field
The present invention relates generally to computer network communications and, more particularly, to controlling the display of information on a Web browser via a client side proxy.
2. Description of the Related Art
The World Wide Web is the Internet's multimedia information retrieval system. In the Web environment, client machines effect transactions to Web servers using the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), which is a known application protocol providing users access to files (e.g., text, graphics, images, sound, video, etc.) using a standard page description language known as Hypertext Markup Language (HTML). HTML provides basic document formatting and allows the developer to specify “links” to other servers and files. In the Internet paradigm, a network path to a server is identified by a so-called Uniform Resource Locator (URL) having a special syntax for defining a network connection. Use of an HTML-compatible browser (e.g., Netscape Navigator or Microsoft Internet Explorer) at a client machine involves specification of a link via the URL. In response, the client makes a request to the server identified in the link and receives in return a document formatted according to HTML.
There has been great interest in providing Internet access at minimal economic cost. While most computers now are pre-configured for Internet access, a significant percentage of households still do not have a personal computer. Thus, it has now been proposed to provide a data processing system that, much like a VCR, may be connected to a television set and used in lieu of a personal computer to provide Web access through a conventional remote control device associated with the system unit. Such a system enables the television to become, in effect, a “Web” appliance. The viewer can rapidly switch between conventional television and Internet access using the remote control unit. All of the conventional “Internet” access tools and navigational functions are preferably “built-in” to the system and thus hidden to the user.
Web page authors design their Web content using standard design constraints and HTML formatting constructs. Nevertheless, it is quite often the case that a given Web page looks different when viewed on different client machines, e.g., a workstation computer running Netscape Navigator™ and a personal computer connected to America OnLine™ and running an AOL-supplied browser. As a result of the differences between browser applications, web designers must often design multiple versions of the same or similar content in order to attempt to maintain consistent content display across different browser types. As a corollary, these multiple Web page versions must then be supported on a given server, and this results in slower page access time and often redundant or wasted Web site storage capacity.
The problem of presenting Web content in a consistent manner across multiple display system formats is exacerbated as more and more machines (such as conventional television-based systems) are provided with the capability of displaying such content. Therefore, although the goal of providing a simple-to-use and inexpensive Web “appliance” is laudable, existing techniques and display methods do not address this problem.
It would be highly desirable to provide a mechanism for processing a Web document such as is retrieved from a Web server in order to modify its display characteristics in a dynamic manner before delivery to the browser. Such a mechanism would have particular utility in that it would obviate generation and storage of multiple versions of a particular Web page yet ensure that the page is displayed consistently across multiple Web content display system types.